


No Limits

by Servetolive



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Anal Sex, Avalanche, Banter, Bisexual Cloud Strife, Choking, Cloud is a fucking brat, Deepthroating, Dirty Talk, Dom!Cloud, Drug Use, F/M, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Friends With Benefits, Het and Slash, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, POC gaze, Porn With Plot, Rimming, Topping from the Bottom, Vaginal Sex, safe sex, spinner!Cloud
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:14:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22786246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Servetolive/pseuds/Servetolive
Summary: "So... you and Tifa are..."The easiest answer, both phonetically and truthfully, would have been "no." But Cloud glanced down at Jessie, observing how the edges of her teeth clung to her bottom lip as if they were ready to catch the next thing out of his mouth.His tongue reached back for the response that would require the most syllables, and the most explanation."It's complicated."--Cloudgoesthere.
Relationships: Cloud Strife/Barret Wallace, Cloud Strife/Biggs/Jessie Rasberry, Cloud Strife/Jessie Rasberry, Jessie/Cloud Strife
Comments: 43
Kudos: 150





	1. ain't safe

**Author's Note:**

> No Limits, as in "No Limit," the G-Eazy song.

"Stayin' up?"

It was an invitation; that much Cloud knew. Tifa, too, had dropped one earlier before retiring to her room, but he could never tell what his old neighbor was suggesting.

With Jessie, it was clear.

He turned his head and considered her, the way she stretched against her chair, arching her back. The peek of skin at her navel. The modest way she opened her mouth as she yawned, as if she wanted to continue to appear as attractive as possible, even as she committed this most involuntary, natural act.

There was nothing overstated about her movements at all. No sultry eye batting that would have had him rolling his eyes and hurting her feelings, no ghost-like touching on elbows or shoulders, no deep drop in her voice to communicate what wasn't already obvious. That's what Cloud found refreshing about her: she wasn't really _trying;_ not that hard, and yet he knew what she wanted. This was her. She was unperturbed by his calculated aloofness and he was unperturbed by her persistence.

Now, the facade of battle-camaraderie was over. It was late. It wasn't a question of "do you have my back" anymore.

She maintained eye contact the whole time, returning to her normal sitting position, smiling. In fact, Cloud thought, he couldn't remember a single moment since they'd met earlier that night that she _hadn't_ been smiling, even when fighting. There it is again; charming, and natural. Two things he feared he'd be unable to present, if he stayed too long in one person's company.

Cloud finished the shot in his hand, and set the glass down. Aside from the little smile he gave her when she complimented his agility at the burning reactor, he left her no crumbs by way of expressions.

"Yeah," he said, nodding his head over his shoulder in Barret's general direction. "For a little while. Gotta have that conversation."

If she were disappointed, she didn't show it. Instead, her head--smile included--darted towards the mass of man hunched over the pinball machine.

"How 'bout you, Barret?"

Barret didn't answer. There was just the clicking and beeping of the machines and the little wooden pegs smacking into the ball. He was putting more pressure onto the side-buttons than was likely required.

"Goddammit!" He slammed his fists into the resin glass as the machine mocked his loss with a monotone buzz. Its lights flickered.

Jessie wasn't really expecting an answer. She chuckled and got up from her workstation, flipped off the monitor and stretched again.

"You two enjoy each other's company." She winked at Cloud and went to the room she either shared with Biggs and Wedge or Tifa. Cloud didn't know for sure, but an educated guess told him that she wouldn't want him to follow her if she were rooming with his childhood friend.

There were two other rooms, and the one decorated aggressively with yellow and black-striped tape, and a poorly made wood sign that warned to _KEeP OuT!!!_ -, was clearly Barret's. The one right next door to Jessie's, he concluded, must have been Tifa's.

Jessie waved good night, smiling at Cloud over her shoulder as she closed the door. Cloud, forgetting that his glass was empty, moved toward it to drink from it, but stopped when he realized that he was staring after her. She made sure that she was visible in the narrow slit that the door provided until it was shut completely. Cloud dropped eye contact first.

He wanted to issue no more promises: not to anyone, of any sort.

As Barret went on mashing buttons at the machine, Cloud rose up from his stool and had a look at the bottles on the other side of the bar. Tifa didn't label anything. He reached over and pulled up an opaque white bottle that had a spout attached to it and upturned it into his glass. A quarter of a shot splashed into it and nothing else. He replaced it and sat back down.

That machine was clearly kicking Barret's ass. He couldn't decipher the beeping, but its legs were rocking about, stripping the screws that secured it to the floor. Cloud sniffed his drink, _gin,_ and then mentally ran through the conversation he'd had with Jessie on their way back from the reactor.

\--

Among its members, the night may go down in AVALANCHE history as The Night of Mako Reactor One, or the Night of the Scorpion Sentinel or the First Bombing Mission.

For Cloud, it was The Long Night of One-Ups.

Reflecting on his twenty one years of existence, he couldn't come up with a single hour in which he had talked so damned much. His voice had gone hoarse either from yelling over Barret's gatling gun, trying to give obscure directions to his materia-ignorant teammate, or trying to deflect the near-constant looks into his soul by the others.

In its own way, it was a barrage of attacks on a completely different level than combat. He hadn't come into this with any expectation to make friends, nor had he any inkling that these people would try so hard to get him to like them. _Why?_

He was nobody. He'd always been, and if he were to tell himself that the attention didn't arouse him in some way, it would be a bold-faced lie. His responses were calculated in a manner that he knew would shut down any conversation about what he wasn't prepared to discuss, but he didn't expect them to invite more curiosity.

The contest that Barret seemed to want to have with him, though, was the most taxing part of the night. Guns, dogs, and Shinra weaponry were no issue. Trying to come up with a response to every single one of Barret's challenges left him exhausted by the time Jessie had set the charges in Sector 8.

"Hey, wait--"

Barret's rebuff didn't surprise Cloud. "If it's about your pay," he growled, accurately, "Save it 'til we get to the hideout."

Cloud didn't like this, but they needed to move, and the others had gone on. Mostly.

He followed Barret up the nearby stairs, but had no more desire to spend any time in his company at the present moment. He needed a break.

Turning east, he spotted Jessie before she could maneuver too far out of sight, and called after her. Biggs and Wedge were also close-by, walking at a brisk pace, but purposefully behaving as if they were involved in conversation to deter suspicion.

"Jessie!"

Overhead, a power line crackled violently as he said her name, drowning him out. She slowed, as if she thought she might have heard, but then kept running.

Cloud adjusted his sword and ran after her. The street lights flickered, and bystanders whirled on them, squinting their eyes in confusion. This wasn't a great place to talk; they all looked out of place in battle gear and boots among business casual and clean, expensive trainers on the cobblestone.

"Jess!" He tried again, once he was about eight meters from her. "Wait up!" He stopped running. Once she turned around, he knew she would come to him.

Jessie pivoted on her left foot and spotted Cloud, just as he waved her over off the street. She met him, of course, with a smile.

"Hang back a bit," Cloud said. He turned toward an alley that had a dumpster, and started off for it, a few paces ahead of her. "I gotta ask you something."

"Okay, but," she said, obliging the invitation, "not too long, 'kay? We really gotta get back."

It wasn't the perfect amount of cover to talk, but the dumpster at least protected them from greater view of those on the main street. The alley was a well traveled one, though; wide enough for foot traffic, not so much for vehicles.

Cloud knew his sword made him conspicuous, but he tried to look as normal as possible, leaning up against the wall on his side, as if he were just some guy talking to a girl. Jessie, who had been a subversive for some time, caught on, mirroring his intent. She stuck her outside hip out, away from the wall, and placed a hand above her head against it.  
  
They stood rather close to each other, and for the first time that night, there was enough _not_ happening for Cloud to observe how Jessie really looked. No, he wasn't just the first girl he'd seen in a long while. Definitely what Zack would call _smoking hot._ She wasn't made of muscle, like Tifa, but there was definition in her back and thighs that showed through armor that was definitely not just the blessings of the gods.

They took in short, heavy breaths, taking a break from the constant movement. Jessie adjusted her headband, and wiped sweat from her brow.

"Got a cigarette?" Cloud asked.

Jessie looked surprised by the question. She frowned for a second and fumbled with her back pocket, then the low one on the right pant of her cargo pants. "Yeah, actually," she said, as she pulled the pack out, and fished the lighter out of another pocket. "They're menthols, though."

"I don't care."

She moved so quickly, it seemed like her brain worked faster than her body. She nearly dropped the pack as she attempted to shake one out for Cloud. He helped her catch it and scoop the cigarettes back into box. She took two, placed them in her mouth, and then lit the both of them with one flame.

"Here," she said. Cloud took it, and placed it in his lips. "You smoke?"

He inhaled deeply before answering, then turned his lips downward to exhale, so as not to blow the fumes in her face. "No. But it helps look like we're doing nothing."

"Right." She took a drag herself, not for a moment taking her eyes off Cloud. He saw her pupils dart around his face, as if she were cataloguing every detail of it. Mapping it, the way she does her schematics. "So..."

"Look, I need to know what I can do to get my money from Barret."

Jessie took her eyes off him then, looking from side to side, as if Cloud had said something incredibly stupid. "Why would you think there'd be a problem getting your money from Barret?"

"He keeps avoiding the issue."  
  
Jessie shrugged, and then picked up one of her feet to put out the cigarette halfway through. "A bombing mission is hardly the right time to talk about money, isn't it?" She looked up at him, chipper as ever.

Cloud took another drag. "I got a bad feeling about it, that's all. I don't think he has the money. And he's a damned fanatic. The way he talks, I think he'd rather put a bullet in my head and save the investment on something else."

"He wouldn't do that."

"I don't know that." It was a weak argument, but Cloud intended to hold his ground.

"He'll pay you, Cloud." Jessie sounded grounded here, like she absolutely wanted Cloud to know that she was serious. Perhaps she took exception to what Cloud said about her friend.

"I don't know that, either."

" _I_ do. _I'd_ pay you."  
  
"You're not the one that offered me fifty grand."

"He hates talking about money, that's all. He's good for it." She shrugged. "Maybe not tonight, but..."

"No," Cloud closed his eyes and shook his head. "No, I want my money tonight."

"You're taking off, then."

A couple walking by gave Cloud the perfect opportunity not to respond. They made eye contact with them. He went on smoking his prop casually, fighting back the urge to cough.

"This isn't my fight," Cloud admitted, still tracking the couple as they got smaller in the distance.

"I want you to stay, though." She realized what she had said, and backpedaled. "We all do."

Internally, Cloud recoiled at the implication of _we all do._ The disgust might have leaked onto his features. "I don't, though."

Jessie scoffed, playfully, and let go of the wall. "So, lemme get this straight. You want me to help you leave, when I don't want you to go, and it would put me in direct conflict with my boss?" She smirked at him, and started to turn the corner of the dumpster. "You got me fucked up, Cloud."

"Jessie." He caught her by the elbow. It didn't take much to turn her back towards him.

She was still smiling, waiting to listen.

He made his words quick, decisive, and honest. "I'm not going anywhere," he said, "Not yet. Not while Tifa is here. But I don't want anyone else to know that. I just want my money, and I want it tonight."

"Why?"

There was no way in hell that he was going to tell Jessie the real reason why, because he didn't have the words for it himself. Something about dominance. Something about forcing Barret's hand in his own game. Something about Cloud being in control for once in his life--something he'd never experienced before.

Something about relishing the act of making a man much larger than him squirm while he kept his cool, a rock against the hurling wind. Relishing beyond all logical explanation. The banter was exhausting, but every time he came out on top, there was an intoxicating high waiting for him there that fueled every thrust of his blade and kept his blood pounding in his ears as he cut through the reactor.

"I just do. I need to know that he's good for it before I do anything else. Can you blame me?"

Jessie ignored the last question. "Why do you think I wouldn't tell anyone else?"

She asked with her chin raised, leaning against the wall. Expecting.

Cloud mirrored _her_ action, leaning against the wall, looking down at her, their feet perhaps six inches apart.

"Would you?"

Jessie looked away, _hmphed,_ and dropped one of her legs from its place against the wall.

She wouldn't, Cloud discerned, when she moved on to the next question.

"So... you and Tifa are..." She let the heavy air swallow the rest of the sentence that she had no intention of finishing.

Cloud folded his arms, as he approached any twinge of insecurity, no matter how minute. The easiest answer, both phonetically and truthfully, would have been "no." But Cloud glanced down at Jessie, observing how the edges of her teeth clung to her bottom lip, like they were ready to catch the next thing that came out of his mouth.  
  
He unfolded his arms and pressed his shoulder into the wall next to her. His tongue reached back for the response that would require the most syllables, and the most explanation.

"It's complicated."

She tucked her chin down and looked up at him with hooded eyes, the corners of her mouth quirking into a coy smile. It was the right answer--one that built upon his mystery; added excitement to her pursuit. She wouldn't ask for the details.

Those two words were a key that twisted inside Jessie, and she stepped closer to Cloud.

"You're not a snitch either, are you?"

He lifted an eyebrow. "'Scuse me?"

Jessie crinkled her nose, and looked around. "I can't believe I'm doing this," she said under her breath. She seemed embarrassed, but motioned for Cloud to come closer to her nonetheless.

"So, something you should know about Barret..."

Cloud thought that was ridiculous, as the only people who could make sense of their secrets were probably more than halfway back to Seventh Heaven, but he obliged her request for closer contact, and leaned down to her, turning his ear to her mouth.

When she was done, Cloud blew a raspberry, and stood up.

"Are you shitting me?"

Jessie couldn't contain a giggle with the fingers she put over her mouth. "I'm not shitting you, that's what it is."

Cloud looked up at the crackling power line in disbelief. He had just wasted several minutes of his life.

He turned to go. "That's bullshit."

Jessie caught him on his left pectoral muscle. "No, seriously," she whispered. "Listen."

She spoke to him again. The hushed whispers reminded Cloud of middle school gossiping circles, but he then understood why they were so widely participated in. There were things about the world he lived in and people he knew that he never knew he _wanted_ to know, but like any other disaster, it was fascinating to observe.

And every time he met her divulged information with an air of disbelief, she gave him more. He felt comfortable resting a hand against her hip as she stood on her toes to give him the rest of it. Her hands found his shoulder as she leaned up into his ear.

She finished for a second time, and Cloud dug in his ear momentarily as if he were trying to fish out the "bullshit" he'd just heard. He shook his head, snorting air out of his nose in a scoff. He took one last drag of the cigarette and tossed the butt.

"Are you surprised?"

Cloud didn't know Barret too well, but if what Jessie had told him was true, he was both judging and challenging the man from a completely wrong perspective. He'd have never gotten his money. Barret would have strung him along forever until it came to blows, and that was not Cloud's prerogative.

"That's... stupid," he said. "But no, actually. Not really."

"Does it... help, though?" Jessie cocked her head, as she asked. As he looked back at her, he realized _another_ thing that he saw as interesting: she was an analyst to her core, and while she didn't have a direct answer on how Cloud could get his money _that_ night for sure, she picked her brain for information he could use tactically if it were important enough to him, but nothing so forthcoming that it would ensure an escape for him.

 _Sharp as fuck,_ he noted. Sharper than her friends, even.

He set a hand on his hip and looked out at the chain link fence across from where they stood, separating the alley from an abandoned lot. There were things to consider.

"We'll talk later." He gave her a clap on the back that made her smile broaden. It was sort of rewarding, Cloud thought to himself, to be able to do so little to make someone smile.  
  


They had only been standing out in the open--away from the dumpster--for a few seconds before they heard the whistle blow at the other end of the alley behind them.

"Hey! Halt!"

Cloud turned to Jessie: "Run."

She didn't have to be told twice. Jessie darted around the dumpster just as the infantry men opened fire on Cloud. He'd taken his sword out to block in enough time to shield Jessie's getaway. He didn't engage them directly until he knew she was gone.

\--

Behind him, Barret swore and smacked the side of the machine, _c'mon, bitch,_ and went in for another round.

He chose another empty bottle. Barret must have been on his last ball. The cursing came through gritted teeth and the machine rattled even more as he gripped the sides, punching the triggers ferociously. He finally lost, with a loud _fuck_ and one last pound into the glass.

At the sound of Barret redepositing it into the machine, Cloud finished his drink, slid off his chair, making sure that his footsteps fell in beneath the sounds of Barret's loud gaming.

This wouldn't take him long. Barret wasn't going anywhere.

A few broad steps, and he was at Jessie's door, rotating the knob slowly, and then sliding into the smallest space in the open door he could manage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a slut for ho!Cloud, and I just really want to see him fuck these two and keep it moving. Always liked the idea of Cloud and Jessie being FWBs, and I've always wanted to write Cloud/Barret, but couldn't figure out a decent context for it. The Remake Demo has certainly helped with all that. The rest of this is porn.


	2. pipe up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Didn't they suck your dick like that in SOLDIER?"_
> 
> _"What do you know about that?"_
> 
> _"Just rumors."_
> 
> Cloud accepts the invitation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is porn. Vulgar names for genitalia abound.

It took Cloud less time to adjust to darkness than most others. He'd closed his eyes before entering the room to soften the transition, but he didn't need to: soft light came from one side of the room, muted by patched burgundy curtains that Jessie had apparently fashioned around a loft to form her own little private space. 

Cloud rotated the door knob silently and released it slowly, avoiding a click that might rouse the body just to the left of him. Biggs occupied space right up against the wall that they all shared with Tifa's room. He slept on his back, fully clothed save for his boots, elbow slung over the top-half of his face to shield it from the light. Cloud observed the way his body moved, timing the rise and fall of his chest, and decided that he was asleep.

Wedge's rumbling snores came from the corner of the room farthest from where he stood, out cold. A radio played barely intelligible white noise from his corner, almost right into his ear. 

Just as he felt comfortable enough to move, he noticed Jessie's silhouette at the corner of her makeshift quarters, cloaked in a threadbare, sheer robe that was quite frayed at the edges. The light at its angle shone right through it; she was naked underneath it, her breasts making sharp peaks through the fabric.

She knew he'd come; he knew _she'd_ know. He couldn't see her facial features, but he imagined the always-present grin. She waved him over.

Their timing with each other was so uncanny; it unsettled Cloud a bit, but not in a wholly unenjoyable way. He was sure it wasn't specific to him, but that Jessie was just that chick that he'd heard about from the other men in his life: the holy grail of all girls, the ride or die who didn't catch feelings. The girlfriend who was just as the name suggested: a friend who was a girl who let you fuck and didn't think anything of it.  
  
"Hey, smooth talker," she whispered.  
  
Cloud moved toward the curtains, and slipped in after her, making sure that they did not stay open long enough to blind Biggs in his sleep or alert him to his presence.   
  
"Smooth talker," he parroted. "You're the one who talked me in here."  
  
"I didn't say a word, though!"  
  
The loft was high enough to allow them to walk without ducking, but there wasn't much space.  
  
"You built this yourself?" He asked.  
  
"Yeah. Needs a tune-up, though."  
  
The light came from a lamp on a small desk covered with all manner of shit: streaks of paint, spliced cable cords, wrenches of different sizes. She'd made butterflies out of old Shinra Gazette newspaper clippings and had put some minimal effort into feminizing her space with stickers and dirty plastic dolls she'd likely found lying around, in various states of decomposition or wear.  
  
Jessie turned towards Cloud, and sat at the edge of her bed. She hadn't bothered to tie her robe shut, and the edges of it pooled around her tits, sliding on and off as she leaned back on her elbows, letting her knees fall open. She bit her lip and gave Cloud a teasing smile, raising both her eyebrows. Her hair, down from its ponytail and free from her headband, spilled over a shoulder.  
  
Cloud leaned against the wall next to the desk, observing her. The juxtaposition of this girl in her pink robe, panties, and junky, handmade room said more about who she was than the shapes on her wall.   
  
He wasn't going to take the bait. She was going to come and get it from him. He folded his arms.  
  
"Cute place."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
She did exactly as Cloud expected, and met him at the wall. It was a relief that the both of them knew exactly why they were there, and that there was no question about why she was putting her hands on him, running them up along the ribbing of his shirt, pressing against them to find the outlines of his muscles.  
  
Cloud's face would have reflected a flat affect to a casual onlooker, but Jessie was quick enough to recognize micro-expressions that indicated arousal. She found a nipple under the wool and caught a new crease in the right corner of Cloud's otherwise smooth face that hadn't been there before. When her hands moved back down and passed over a twitching abdominal muscle, he took in air before the natural rhythm of his breathing would otherwise dictate him to do so. A palm over his crotch rewarded her with the best of all: his eyes fluttering shut, just for a moment, before opening again and eyeing her with a tilted head.  
  
Jessie took the opportunity to close the space between them and perform the in-depth study of Cloud's face that she'd been shamelessly wanting to do all night.  
  
"You're so goddamned pretty," she whispered, her fingers against his jawline, pressing against it as if she were testing its pliability; her ability to mold it into something else.  
  
Cloud had always heard apocryphally that when you look into a lover's eyes, you connect with them on an astral-level; you're seeing their dreams, their open wound of a soul, their Lifeblood in mirrors.  
  
He couldn't say that such were the case with he and Jessie. He'd removed the gloves from his hands and pressed one against her navel. She closed her eyes, shuddered against him.  
  
Jessie's eyes were pretty and all, _she_ was pretty. But what he saw in them was his own reflection; that she was in absolute awe of him just for how he looked, something he had nothing to do with. She was worshiping him, and he was there for it.  
  
He slid his hands down to her hips and pulled her into him. He led his kiss with his tongue; she welcomed it with a parted mouth, and he caught her bottom lip instead. She liked that route better, though, and snaked her tongue out to meet his.   
  
Their lips never stayed together for long.  
  
Cloud was certainly no expert on sex, but he felt free to do whatever felt good with this person. He parted his knees, slid a finger down the front of Jessie's panties and felt her moan right into his throat. It vibrated everywhere inside of him. When he dipped his finger into the wet slit and nudged against her clit, she pushed up against him, hard against the wall, swinging a leg around his to ride his knee. It had surprised him. She knocked into his jaw, but followed the action with a slow, long bite of his bottom lip that fucking burned and sent it right to his cock. He took the hand from her and reached around to grab her ass, steadying her on him knee as she ground against him in a circle, the fibers of his pants crunching together with every revolution of her hips.   
  
"You've got a really nice ass," he chanced a murmur between her lips, feeling the muscle beneath the soft skin there. Her response was to cover his hand with hers and curl around it, digging his fingers into her as she went on grinding.  
  
It must have felt good, because every time she came down on his leg, her teeth came down with them. She broke the kiss each time and let her head roll back before re-engaging.  
  
This wasn't kissing in any kind of way he'd seen or experienced it, where it was meant to make partners feel secure and aroused enough to open up.   
  
They were already fucking.  
  
Jessie undid the buckles of his load-bearing vest and shoulder guard while he was distracted with a breast in his hand. If he hadn't noticed it falling and leaned backward in time to catch it, it would have crashed on the floor.  
  
"Ah, shit," she whispered. "Sorry."   
  
He stopped the make-out session and reached back to ensure the equipment's smooth trip to the floor. It was a good opportunity for them to catch their breath.  
  
"Careful," he said. He drew a hand through her hair, flipping the majority of it to one side. "Might wake your friends."  
  
Jessie's eyes flickered devilishly, and she peeled herself off his leg--quite literally, as there was a white mess right on the spot that she had been humping. She dropped to a squatting position in front of him to start undoing his pants, more enthusiastic with each button released. Like she couldn't wait to get to it.   
  
Jessie reached into Cloud's fly and wrapped each finger around his cock individually, thumb last to make a full circle. That was what finally broke Cloud's steel-faced mask, and he closed his eyes, braced himself back against the wall, brow furrowed. The quietest of moans made it from his lips before he heard himself and stopped.  
  
He opened his eyes to see Jessie, drinking up every drop of him unraveling, toying delicately with the base of his cock. He leaned back against the wall, placing an arm back above his head, and watched Jessie pull him out.  
  
The head of his dick was nearly directly between her eyes, and she used just her index and middle finger to give the top a long stroke, and then repeated the action. Cloud felt dizzy.  
  
"You do this to all your new friends?" He asked, weaving a hand through the side of her head again. She leaned into it. "Or am I just lucky?"  
  
"You're just lucky."  
  
Her mouth on him sent his head back against the wall. Ordinarily, he'd be embarrassed about stupid details like the face he was making, or the things he said. He gave this girl what she wanted though, curling fingers into her scalp. He let his eyes fall into narrow slits and gritted his teeth, peeling back lips just slightly to show them.   
  
Feedback was good. She kept her eyes on him, not missing a second of it, sliding him inside with her tongue against the underside. She sucked when she pulled, dragging a long, wincing hiss from Cloud. The _pop_ her mouth made when she let go of him was probably the loudest sound they'd made so far.   
  
Cloud swore, placing his other hand in her hair as she went down on him again. That time, she stayed down, attempting to push the tip of his cock closer to the back of her throat.  
  
It took everything in his power not to push her head down onto him, to make her gag on it. He was rewarded by her finally finding the right angle and muscle control to deep throat him on her own.  
  
The muscles in her esophagus were a tight fit. Cloud's head snapped back into the wall.  
  
"Shit!"  
  
She gagged, and pulled away slowly from him, mouth open to drag the webs of saliva with her. The exertion on his face went straight to her cunt, and she placed a hand into her panties to play in it.  
  
"You... really like doing that," Cloud asked, tracing the lines of her outer ear. "Don't you?"  
  
"It helps that you have a pretty cock." She stuck her tongue out playfully, and patted it with the swollen tip. Cloud blushed, the same way he did when she complimented him at the reactor.  
  
"Didn't they suck your dick like that in SOLDIER?" She said with a proud chuckle, dragging her thumb across the corner of her mouth to clean it.  
  
Cloud's mouth quirked upward in a smirk. The fact that he had almost never been on the receiving end of a barracks blow job crossed his mind, and he shut it away quickly.  
  
"What do you know about that?"  
  
"Just rumors," she shrugged as she dipped her head a last time.   
  
"God..." Cloud exhaled, rolling his shoulders back against the wall. Letting his head drop forward and his eyes lose focus on his friend.  
  
_"Are you fucking serious right now?"_  
  
Jessie's head popped up, and whipped back toward the curtain in the direction of Biggs's voice.  
  
"God, Jessie!" He groaned from his cot. "You just met him!"  
  
Jessie shushed him loudly, cock still in hand, hissing, "Go back to sleep!"  
  
"How? _You_ go to sleep!"  
  
"You're going to wake Wedge!" Wedge--and his radio--snored on.  
  
Cloud couldn't help but start to chuckle. This was an experience he'd shared multiple times in the army, mostly from Biggs's perspective. The cot shifted under Biggs's weight as he turned, complaining as he tossed blankets over his head.   
  
If anything, he were glad for the interruption: Cloud would have been happy to just let Jessie suck his dick all night, and something told him that she would have been fine with that too.   
  
He didn't have all night, and they needed to move this along.  
  
Jessie turned back to Cloud, and stood up. His dick slid between her thighs as she pressed herself against him and kissed him.  
  
"Sorry," she murmured, then added coquettishly: "He's just in love with me."  
  
Cloud chased the kiss, enjoying the way he tasted on her, mixed with the faint trace of nicotine. The sound of their lips smacking filled the small space. He no longer cared how much noise they made; in fact, he felt obliged to be less quiet, if only to annoy Biggs.  
  
"Haven't shared your generosity with him, I suppose," he said, leaning down from her to tug at the zippers in each boot, before standing up again and slipping out of them. That cued Jessie to take his hand and lead him to the bed.  
  
"I have!" She mostly mouthed that word. Cloud finished undoing the rest of his pants, and dropped them, leaning over to pull them off his feet. He looked up at her.  
  
"No good?" He whispered with a smirk, and a light shake of his head.  
  
She felt slightly embarrassed, but scrunched her nose and shoulders up with a shrug.  
  
That told Cloud everything he needed to know, and there it was; the rush of excitement not different from what he felt in the reactor that came with the opportunity to flex his newfound ego.  
  
He went to her, took her by the back of her thighs and picked her up so quickly that she squealed delightfully.  
  
He held her up in the air for a moment so that she could enjoy his strength, and then pitched her onto her bed. She gasped when she hit the mattress, her robe flying open and puffing out beneath her.  
  
Her smile was bright and wide, different than it was at any other time that night, screaming _fun._ It was wiped away by her tongue as Cloud drew his down in a line against her flat, tight stomach, all the way to her pelvis as he went to his knees on the floor.   
  
He could smell her all night; she had came all over his pant leg, and her cunt left the thin panties practically saturated. He disposed of them, sliding them off and tossing them aside, and placed each of her legs on a shoulder. Jessie was gasping and arching before he'd even touched her, just from the knowledge of what he was about to do.  
  
"And this," she said, her anxiety obviously taking over, "Is why I don't fuck with him. He _never_ does this--"  
  
"Shut up."   
  
Before she got the chance to apologize, Cloud had slid two fingers inside of her. It had the desired affect of stealing the breath right out of her so that she wouldn't go on a tangent. She couldn't keep herself from letting out a long moan, and Cloud couldn't keep himself from talking loud enough for the other occupants of the room to hear at least some of what he was saying.  
  
"That's better."  
  
He lapped at her clit and her hips snapped up to meet him.  
  
"You've been wet all fucking night, haven't you?" Cloud curled his fingers inside of her, watching her reaction. She was biting the inside of her robe now, a knowingly feeble attempt at quieting herself. For the first time that night, she broke eye contact with him. He slid in deeper, put his mouth on her, sucked her while his fingers worked inside.  
  
"Since the reactor," she managed, writhing. Her fingers crushed the cheap wool comforter underneath her. "God, Cloud, stop..."  
  
Instead of stopping, Cloud found the little mound inside of her that made her spasm. She jerked so hard that she nearly kicked him, yelping audibly enough to elicit another groan from Biggs.   
  
Cloud ignored her, passing over it a few more times to tease her, nearly drenching his hand in the process. Jessie was shuddering now, almost violently, mewling with as much control on her volume as she could muster. He chuckled softly as he sucked one last time and let her clit slip from his mouth.

"What were you gonna do if I never came in here?"  
  
He stood up from the edge of the bed, in nothing but his turtle neck and socks, and pulled her to the edge of the bed. She reached around to run a finger along the underside of his balls; the other hand between her legs to grab hold of his cock. Cloud let her slide it against her, slickening it.   
  
"I... um..." Jessie, finally, was in no condition to for coherent thought or words. Her lids drooped; she was past the want stage and she needed his cock inside of her, to fill in the space Cloud had left behind with his fingers.   
  
"Show me."  
  
He found it harder to control the muscles in his face, but he gave her what she wanted, his coldness, his control, and she fucking _ate_ it.   
  
Cloud watched as she took the hand off his balls, slid closed fingers down her front to catch her clit between them on the way, and plunged them into her hole.  
  
He watched her in complete, stoic silence as she fucked herself, standing above her, pressing his palms down into the inside of her thighs to spread her apart as she began losing control. The vulgar sounds of her fingers hitting her wet flesh reverberated in the room, just as Cloud had wanted.  
  
He heard Biggs shift again, uncomfortable. " _God-fucking-dammit_." It distracted Jessie momentarily; she turned toward the curtain.

"Don't worry about him. Keep it together for me."

She struggled to maintain eye contact. She wasn't breathing evenly anymore, and each oddly paced breath of air was more like a gasp of survival.  
  
"Cloud," she choked, "I can't--"  
  
She was going to make herself come. As soon as her eyes began to roll back into her head, Cloud released her thighs. She stopped, and took several deep, long pulls of air to calm herself down.  
  
"Rubber," he ordered, holding his right hand out. His other hand palmed the moisture off his cock, and gave it a few pumps while he waited for Jessie to obey.   
  
With considerable effort, Jessie used her forearms to pull herself away from Cloud, and over to her bedside desk. She reached in, pulled one out, and then seemed to have a second thought about it. She looked over her shoulder.  
  
"Really?" She asked.  
  
Cloud scoffed and rolled his eyes.  
  
"What? Yes, _really_." He reached over and snatched the packet from her hand, tearing off the corner. "Are you crazy?"  
  
Jessie pouted for a second, but then slid back down to him. "Are you dirty?"   
  
"No, but... ahh." She leaned down, grabbing hold of his cock and balls, nearly knocking him off balance. He had to rest a hand against her shoulder to keep himself upright.  
  
She pressed the shaft against her cheek, and looked up at him with brown doe eyes. She kissed the base, and then turned her head to give it a once over.  
  
"Looks alright," she said. "Smells alright. Tasted alright."  
  
Cloud pulled her off of him with a dark smile, and plucked the condom from the package, letting the foil fall to the floor.   
  
"You're a hot mess," he said, as he placed tip of the condom between his fingers--like a cigarette--and placed it between her lips.  
  
"Damn you, I _know_ it..."  
  
With her mouth, she rolled the condom on easily, but not without a complaint about the lubricant coating her tongue. She was in the process of wiping her mouth on her forearm when Cloud shoved her back rather roughly, readjusted his position between her legs, and rested his cock on top of her pubic bone.  
  
"Try to keep quiet," he whispered. Jessie nodded and tucked her bottom lip under her teeth.  
  
Cloud pressed the tip against her, not wanting to go in just yet, but to have her feel the pressure and weight of his dick against her outer lips, and then her inner lips.   
  
Jessie wasn't having it.  
  
Faster than a whip, she lifted her hips, hooking one calf around Cloud's shoulder, causing him to lose his balance and fall foward. He _dove_ into her with a loud grunt, catching himself on hands that fell to either side of her hips.

It was a complete physical shock to him, even with the condom. He froze for a second, pushing his hips forward, as deep as he could go, letting his head fall and his eyes close.

Jessie's back arched into it. Her eyes rolled back, and she used the leverage created with her leg to control Cloud's strokes.  
  
"Surprised ya, didn't I?"  
  
Cloud lifted his head, so that they were nearly nose to nose. The bid for control was over for him. His cheeks were flushed, and neurological process that passed through his body ran through his cock first, sheathed tightly inside of Jessie.  
  
"That was a dirty move," he said nearly into her mouth, lifting himself so that he could at least move his hips.   
  
"Yeah, but it was a good one!"  
  
Eventually, Cloud moved back from her and began pressing her knees up slowly against her chest.   
  
"Damn," he said, when they were pliable enough to be flush with her breasts. "You're flexible."  
  
Jessie licked her lips at the compliment, and lifted her eyebrows.   
  
It was another pretty sight. Contorted like this, Cloud saw the muscles in her thighs, her slick cunt presented to him.   
  
"C'mon, Cloud," she said, moving her hips so that she was directly beneath him again. "Fuck me, already."  
  
"Don't rush me."   
  
Cloud took a dip just to put his face into her one last time. It looked appetizing with her legs pressed into her chest like that. She moaned again, clearly with all concern for caution completely out of the door.  
  
Biggs made another aggravated noise just as Cloud leaned forward and slid into her for the last time.  
  
He fucked her at that angle, holding himself up, engaging his quads and biceps, pushing her knees into her rib cage, her into her mattress.  
  
Jessie's face was entirely red, contorted with flashes of pain and ecstasy. She held her breath for as long as she could to prevent herself from making noise, and then, she exhaled a deep " _oh_ " as Cloud's rhythm evened out, and sped up.  
  
"Ask me to stop," Cloud breathed, as he pushed into her harder, folding her in on herself, hitting closer to her cervix each time.  
  
She was a complete wreck now, eyes rolling back, dragging ragged breaths in and out of her lungs, clawing at Cloud's arms.  
  
"Ask me to fucking stop," he repeated. He fucked harder. He knew she would do no such thing, but said it again to titillate her and whoever else was listening.  
  
" _Fuck_ no," she hissed.  
  
"You want it harder?"   
  
" _Fuck_ yes!"  
  
He kept his affirmations even, low, crashing against Jessie's exclamations, swearing, and drilling her into the mattress.  
  
Watching her come was no different from being at the site of a fucking meltdown. The whitea in her eyes, the loss of control in her limbs, the fluid spurting from her cunt. The pain she must have been in before every nerve bundled up inside of her exploded, and then the release--  
  
He felt his balls tighten.  
  
"Fuck," Cloud hissed himself, pulled out of her, snapped the condom off in time for him to pump several thick ropes of hot semen right onto her belly.  
  
Jessie's abdomen twitched underneath it. She was exhausted, but she leaned up to get a good look at Cloud squeezing what was left out, his brow furrowed and glistening with sweat.  
  
Finally, he deposited himself down next to her, onto his back, chest heaving, his hands above his head, his softening cock coming to rest beneath his navel in a few drops of come.  
  
Jessie curled up next to him and rested her head on his bicep. He allowed it.  
  
As they caught their breath, it was obvious that Jessie was eager to fill the silence with words.  
  
"How was it?"  
  
"Good," was Cloud's only reply. He was still ventilating.  
  
"Sorry about my friends," she said, bashfully. It was dawning on her that Biggs--and possibly Wedge, too--had heard the entire thing, and that neither of them had been as quiet as they should have been.  
  
Cloud shrugged, and rolled over to reach for a piece of clothing that was hanging out of Jessie's drawer to clean himself with.  
  
"Your friends are fucking annoying," he mumbled, more to himself than anyone else. Jessie didn't seem mad at that, especially because it suggested that _she_ wasn't annoying.  
  
When he was done wiping himself up with the old t-shirt he swiped from Jessie, he offered it to her. She took it, and cleaned herself up as best she could with it.  
  
Just as Cloud was feeling comfortable, he looked up at the ceiling of Jessi's loft, and nearly jumped.

"What is it?"  
  
"You have a _mirror_ in here?"  
  
Jessie just giggled girlishly about it. Looking at his own post-coital, flushed complexion startled the hell out of him, and he rolled over and out of Jessie's bed.  
  
"That's sick." He went over to where his pants and underwear lie, and turned them outside in to begin dressing.  
  
"It is not!"  
  
"You're weird."  
  
"Hey!" She snapped the t-shirt at his bare ass while he was bent over to put one leg in his pants. "Be nice to me!"  
  
"I _am_ nice to you."  
  
As they dressed, they were quiet long enough to hear that Barret was still outside in the bar, moving around. Playing his machine. The radio was just static now, and there wasn't a peep from Biggs either.   
  
Cloud wondered if they were loud enough for Tifa to hear next door.  
  
It occurred to him to ask Jessie if her friends were the snitching or gossiping sort, but he realized it didn't matter. Not a single bit.  
  
That was the honest truth. It didn't matter if Tifa heard.  
  
"Barret's still out there," Jessie said, pouring a glass of water from a pitcher she kept next to her bed. She was all business again, like they had just come back from the mission.  
  
Cloud took the water and finished it in three gulps. "I know." He handed her the glass, and she went to pour another for herself.  
  
"You gonna... talk to him?"  
  
Cloud fastened his belt and picked his LBV off the floor, shrugging into it. "I'm not above it."  
  
"You've got like, no limits, man."  
  
"It's just business."  
  
Jessie went to work pouring some of the water onto her the black rag they'd used, and sponged herself, right there in front of Cloud.  
  
"Well, don't stay up too much later. We have to get up at six o'clock."  
  
"Says the person who kept me up past two." He clicked his vest shut, and fetched his gloves off the floor.  
  
"Oh, get the hell out of here." She tossed the towel at him; it missed as he shifted his weight onto one leg to dodge it. "You loved it."  
  
Fully dressed, he turned to Jessie to wish her goodnight.  
  
"Am I gonna be lynched as I walk out of here?"  
  
Jessie chuckled, walked over to him, and gave him a hug.  
  
It took him a few seconds, but he lifted an arm and put it around her, and patted her shoulder to tell her that the hug was over.  
  
She opened the curtain, to let him out. "Have a good night, Cloud."  
  
Wedge was no longer snoring, and the room filled with his whiny, yawning voice.   
  
"What happened?" he asked, "Why is everyone still up?"  
  
"Go back to bed, Wedge," Jessie said, softly.  
  
"Are you two _done_?" Biggs rumbled from his fetal position on his mat.   
  
Cloud walked toward the door, observing Biggs as he stepped around his living space. He was angry more from exhaustion rather than jealousy it seemed, although, he was sure that there were still some bitter feelings in there. He doubted the would be friends any time soon, after having screwed his ex just feet away from.  
Cloud was okay with that.  
  
"Yeah, Biggs." He zipped up his pants, loudly. "I'm done."  
  
He exchanged coy smiles with Jessie before she fell back into her loft, and shut out her light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited this finally, so many errors... 
> 
> Coming up: Barret takes the bait, too.


	3. hundred bands from the safe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Careful, Merc,” Barret said. “‘Round here, that’s something a whore does.”_
> 
> _“Ain’t that what a Merc is?” Cloud examined the clear liquid in his glass and downed it. He barely winced as it burned down his chest. “A whore with a weapon?”_
> 
> Cloud gets his coin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cloud be wildin' y'all.
> 
> Thanks to my cousin, powerofsand, for helping me get this done!

“Caught you with the honey,” Barret rumbled smoothly from his place at the pinball machine. “Didn’t she.”

Barret’s voice would have startled Cloud, if it weren’t so relatively quiet compared to their previous interactions. He was positive that he hadn’t made a sound coming out of Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie’s room, but he went on talking to the back of Barret’s head as if they’d agreed to a conversation beforehand all along.

As if the other man had been waiting on him.

The door closed behind him, and he walked over to the bar.

“It wasn’t hard for her,” he said, finding a damp rag that Tifa had left behind when she closed shop. He ran it under the faucet for a second, and set to dabbing out the white stain Jessie had left behind on his left pant leg. He frowned a bit; some had gotten between the fibers and was staying, no matter which direction he rubbed the cloth.

He gave up on it when the water left a darker spot on the fabric than her juices, and tossed the dishrag into the sink. He came around the bar, and leaned back against it so that he was directly in Barret’s line of sight, should he choose to turn around.

“She’s sweet,” he added, folding his arms, to ensure that Barret knew what he meant.

“Mm-hmm,” Barret said, obviously unconvinced about… something. _Everything_ about Cloud seemed to warrant more suspicion from this man than the others, and the idea that Jessie might have been wrong about him briefly crossed his mind. But he knew Jessie better than the others--not only because he’d _just_ fucked her, but because she seemed to genuinely want to be his friend, and appeared to have no reason to lie.

“Yeah, she can be sweet.” Here, Barret finally turned from his machine, drawing himself to full height. Beside him, his cybernetic arm caught Cloud’s eye briefly when Barret curled his fingers, and it whirred softly. He enjoyed a brief flash in his head of his own fingers curling inside Jessie, and loosened up his stance.

“You, though,” the larger man went on, his head leaning to the side as he used his good arm to point to Cloud. “I dunno ‘bout.”

Barret wasn’t hiding behind his shades this time, and it took Cloud every ounce of nerve in him to maintain eye contact. The man really was intimidating, and was perhaps the most intense person he’d ever encountered. Misplaced aggression and passion for the Planet be damned, the scars on his face and whatever story lie behind his missing limb gave him pause to consider that Barret was as real as he intended to appear with his boisterous behavior and shouting.

Cloud shrugged, and offered a smirk softer than what he’d exchanged with his new friend in her room.

“Me?” He reached back for the bottle of gin- and poured another shot, neat, into the glass he’d left earlier. “I can be sweet. Just depends.”

“Depends on _what,_ exactly, Stamp?”

Cloud dropped his free arm, and rubbed his two forefingers together with his thumb.

Barret glanced at Cloud’s hand, then back up at Cloud’s face.

“Careful, Merc,” he finally said. “‘Round here, that’s something a whore does.”

“Ain’t that what a Merc is?” Cloud examined the clear liquid in his glass and downed it. He barely winced as it burned down his chest. “A whore with a weapon?”

Barret laughed, and it was such a _natural_ action; wholly unlike the borish belly laughs he forced in front of other people. “You shore right ‘bout that,” he said.

The smile Cloud allowed was faint, but it was there, and definitely detectable. He set the glass behind him, and pushed himself off the bar.

“So,” he said, approaching Barret as close as he dared; so close that Barret lifted an eyebrow, and set a foot back, as if he were expecting Cloud to reach out and touch him. He didn’t, though: just kept his arms folded, and let the lack of space between them speak for his intent.

“What did you think? ‘Worth every gil?’”

Barret scoffed from his throat, and lifted his chin, as if Cloud were several heads taller than he actually were.

“You ain’t worth shit to me yet, Merc.”

“Hm,” Cloud laughed, looking down for a second. “Still need to vet me for your hard-earned coin?”

“What do _you_ think?”

Cloud had a glance around the room, the smugness in his grin unrelenting.

“Where’s your kid?”

“In the bed, with Tifa.” Barret seemed to steam over with that question. “Why?”

He moved past Barret, toward the badly decorated door to his room. He placed his hand on the door.

“This your room?”

“Stay outta there.”

Before Barret had even finished the sentence, he'd turned the knob to the door, taunting him with his eyes.

Barret moved toward him.

"The hell you think you're goin'?"

Cloud pushed the door open.

"Let's talk shop."

\--

The smell of sweat and dirty leather wasn’t the most inviting, but being a military man, Cloud had smelled much worse. It didn’t seem right that Barret got an entire room to himself while two males roomed with one female, but Barret seemed to have more junk in his room than Jessie had ever likely worked on.

As Barret followed behind him, he took inventory of the shoddy array of dumbells, weight machines, termite-bitten reclaimed chests and the mattress that lie crooked on several milk crates.

“Your place could use a decent dusting,” Cloud noted, as he moved toward a corner table that was covered in stray papers. A metal canister had caught his eye there, and he picked it up to unscrew it.

“I told you to stay out of here.” Cloud noted humorously to himself that Barret had closed the door behind him.

He sniffed the bottle. “Moonshine?”

“Yeah. You don’t wanna mess with that.”

Without further invitation, Cloud poured some into the cap to try.

Barret folded his arms, and stroked his chin, eyeing Cloud with suspicion.

“Jessie say somethin’ to you?”

Cloud’s mouth was too occupied with the drink to answer. He touched the liquid with the tip of his tongue, let it burn for a second, and then finished it in one swallow. His powerful wince caused Barret to burst into soft laughter, forgetting his question.

“I told you, you don’t wanna mess with that, kid.”

Barret was too busy rejoicing over Cloud’s discomfort to notice that he’d recovered. He rolled his tongue around in his mouth, trying to identify the base fruit.

“Not bad. Lacking in flavor a bit.” He was too busy pouring another drink to notice that the grin on Barret’s face had fallen straight to the floor. “You must have used dumbapples,” he said, flicking his eyes up toward the man as he brought the rim of the cap to his lips. “Amateur move.”

Barret got defensive relatively quickly, and over almost nothing. “I been makin’ hooch since before you was even thought of. I was trying somethin’ new.”

“Try _aschebeeren_ next time.” The foreign word rolled off of Cloud’s tongue easily, and hung in the air in sharp contrast to the lazy Standard dialect he’d learned in Midgar. Cloud smiled inwardly at the revolving door combination of surprise, confusion, and then annoyance on Barret’s face. He gave him another. “Leaves a smoky finish on the tongue. Or _glockebirnen_ , if you like it sweet.”

“I don’t speak white mountain boy,” Barret rumbled. “You gonna have to translate.”

Cloud paused, looking up at the wall, to remember the words. Those things didn’t grow anywhere near Midgar, and they were among the many nouns that he’d never quite committed to learning the Standard words for.

“Ashberries,” he said, finally, pouring another cap. “Bell pears. Here.” He offered the cap to Barret.

Barret’s arms were still folded, and he cocked his head at the drink, as if he thought Cloud could have managed to poison it while in full view. The stance was getting old with Cloud; the two of them couldn’t carry on any kind of transaction for much longer if they were both so standoffish.

“The hell you think you’re doing, Merc?”

Cloud wasn’t the type to take ‘no’ for an answer, and he pushed the drink toward Barret as he walked past him to the bed. “Where I’m from, money or services aren’t exchanged without a drink first,” he explained. Barret was compelled to take the shot, as Cloud placed himself on the edge of the bed, and lifted an ankle to unzip his boot.

Barret grunted, as he knocked the drink back, wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist, and went to pour another. “So you think you gettin’ your money tonight.”

“Oh, I’m getting _something_ tonight.” Barret looked back over his shoulder at the suggestive answer. Cloud went about his business with his boots. “Money, a word about it…”

“That why you getting undressed in my bed?” The liquor poured, and Barret finished his second shot before returning to his previous question. “I asked you if Jessie said somethin’ to you.”

The one-syllable laugh came from Cloud’s throat and out his nose. One boot fell to the floor with a decent “thud.” That this man was so self-conscious about being found out amused him to no end.

“Jessie had my dick in her throat the whole forty-five minutes I was with her,” he quipped. “She didn’t say shit. _You,_ on the other hand...”

Cloud waited for the effect of his blunt words to show on Barret’s face, his body language, anything. The latter left the hooch alone and came around to face Cloud, just as he leaned back on the bed casually, looking up.

“You told me everything I need to know about you at the reactor,” Cloud went on, “with all that yelling and posturing.”

Here Barret scratched the back of his head, obviously embarrassed, but not showing it otherwise.

Cloud felt his face warming; the alcohol was doing its job, despite its poor construction. Barret towered over him from where he was sitting, and he stood up, just so he could experience Barret’s size all over again, arms _un_ folded, receptive to his imposing dominance for the first time since meeting him.

Barret’s chest puffed out underneath his arms, even as Cloud closed the distance between them. The lines on his face changed, and his eyelids were weighted as he blinked. He sized Cloud up again, head leaning over to get a better look at more than just the front of him.

“Wasn’t posturing.” The voice still came from deep in his chest, with the same intensity, but less volume. “I meant every damn word I said.”

“You’re old fashioned.” Cloud rolled his eyes. If only he knew how badly that action made Barret want to smack him upside his head.

“If you want to impress me,” he went on, “all you have to do is show me your cock. I’m not going to have a screaming match with you.”

“Hm.” Barret finally dropped his arms, so that his good one could run up along Cloud’s right side. “So you one of _them_ hoes, huh.”

A wave of relief and _power_ surged through Cloud. Now he had _him_ with the honey.

“I’m a Stamp.” Cloud reached out and clasped the buckle of Barret’s belt to pull himself forward. “We fight, or we fuck.”

Men in these positions had parts of their bodies that sometimes spoke louder than words; Cloud learned some time ago that for him, it was his eyes. He thought of Jessie, how desperately her eyes drank in every feature of Cloud’s face, and attempted to replicate it. His instincts had him leaning forward, on his toes to attempt to reach Barret’s height. His bottom lip fell open, slightly dry from the alcohol, and he passed a tongue over it to wet it.

It didn’t work on Barret. In no time, Cloud felt cold metal fingers wrapped around the roots at the base of his skull--his most sensitive spot--and his head pulled back harshly. He’d lost his balance. If it weren’t for Barret’s point of contact at the base of his skull, and the flesh arm curled around his ass, he would have fallen over.

He hissed softly, and his eye threatened to roll back. He felt his spent cock stir with the light pain, and the promise of more.

Barret moved his wrist, to show that he had complete control over Cloud’s movement. He could snap his neck if he wanted.

The stubble on Barret’s cheek scraped against Cloud’s jawline. The hooch must have been metabolising differently in him. Cloud smelled the overripe dumbapple mixed with metal as Barret’s breath passed over his ear.

“I don’t kiss whores,” he growled in his thick drawl, as he caught Cloud’s earring between his teeth. He sunk them in deep enough just to make Cloud groan loudly, and pulled away, before turning his wrist again and shoving Cloud down onto his hard bed. Cloud landed with an audible grunt, face first, his nose bouncing off the mattress.

By the time he’d turned around, Barret was already undoing the buckle of his pants. Cloud maneuvered himself down to the edge of the bed, eyes trained on Barret's.

“But you’d put your dick in one,” he deadpanned as he waited for the belt to snap open and the fly to come down. He struggled to keep his focus on either Barret’s chin or his crotch until Barret made the choice for him by gripping his chin with his metal thumb and two forefingers to hold his mouth fast as a steady target.

A cold, hard thumb pressed into Cloud's bottom lip. Barret snickered as Cloud let the prosthetic digit pass over the wet slice of skin. It snapped back up to his gums, and the taste of metal bled into the spaces between Cloud's teeth.

Barret drew himself out of his pants, without fully bothering to finish undoing them. A quick glance told Cloud what he’d already expected: the size of his cock was proportionate to the rest of him, and much larger than anything he’d dealt with before, even while half-hard. He expected a boasting chuckle from Barret, but there was just silence: he knew he was big; he knew he had Cloud in that department, and he knew that Cloud was going to eat every inch of it.

He concealed his surprise and looked back up at Barret, waiting. Barret slid his hand up Cloud’s face to grab hold of the spikes at the crown of his head, which pulled another soft grunt from him.

“Even _you_ gotta keep certain things sacred, Merc.”

Like a trained dog, as soon as Barret took hold of himself at the shaft, the glands in Cloud’s mouth swelled. He’d done this enough that his body reacted to certain sights and smells as easily as it did to combat. He felt his cock stirring again, restricted in his pants.

“Whatever,” he mumbled, as his bottom lip fell open again, and he slipped his tongue out for Barret to use as a guide to his throat.

Barret went in slowly, so as to enjoy every bit of friction that Cloud’s soft, small mouth had to offer. That was new to him; the nature of the job required all the guys he’d sucked off at Shinra to be in a hurry. Low quality itch-scratching.

Now, he was able to feel Barret’s cock fill out in his mouth as it passed through, Cloud’s teeth gently scraping along. It was a sensation Cloud particularly liked, until the edges of his mouth began to ache.

Barret closed his eyes, tipped his head back, and let out a long, guttural exhale that had Cloud shifting so that one hand slid between his own thighs, and the other braced against Barret’s hip. From his vantage point, Barret might have actually believed that he was the one in control, but Cloud knew better.

Some men might not yield to death, but _every_ man kneels before a twitching hole or a skilled tongue. The thought of this--about the power he held over this man in his mouth--sent chills through Cloud, and he gave Barret the same experience through a soft hum around his cock.

Once the tip hit the back of Cloud’s throat, he held it there.

It was the same battle of wills on a different field. They locked eyes as Barret gritted his teeth, pressing into Cloud. Cloud felt the tears lap at the corner of his eyes, but he held his ground and didn't make a sound until Barret had effectively blocked his windpipe--still not a secession, in his mind, as the only thing keeping him from swallowing it whole was the fact that he needed air.

He made the most abbreviated of noises in the back of his throat. Barret laughed and pulled back, his fingers still entwined in Cloud's spikes.

Barret's cock drew out a long gasp of air with the thick, long wisps of saliva and mucus.

"Too much?"

Only then did Cloud's gag reflex kick in, once Barret's cock had cleared his mouth. He grasped one hand around the base and the other, he curled around Barret's forearm.

"Give me half the fucking chance to breathe, why don't you," Cloud complained, giving Barret one pump as he wiped his mouth with the inside of his bicep.

“I assumed you was using your nose,” Barret quipped back. “Thought you SOLDIER brats are supposed to be good at this kind of thing.”

 _Do you even_ know _how human anatomy works?_ Cloud knew better than to ask that out loud and derail the only working mode of communication they had engaged in thus far.

Instead, he resumed eye contact, and pulled Barret close to him again.

“Haven’t managed to fuck many of us, have you?” He took a deeper breath that time before leading Barret’s cock back into his mouth, this time letting suction do most of the work.

Barret groaned and snapped his hips forward, his real hand coming up to hold the back of Cloud’s head in his palm. Cloud took the shock of each thrust, even lifting his chin so that Barret could gain more access to his throat.

The change in angle caused Barret lean forward, and Cloud to lean back on his hands as Barret fucked his mouth.

“That supposed to mean y’all have high standards or somethin’?” Barret said, voice dripping with vulgar disdain. To make his point, he placed a knee beside Cloud and changed their angle again.

“The fuck happened to you then, boy?”

Barret was talking between grunts now, and he was fully hard. Cloud was getting there, still only half recovered from his moment with Jessie. He sucked his cheeks in, drank the long groan from Barret, and waited for him to pull out to respond.

Cloud hacked to remove the rest of the saliva from his throat and wiped his mouth for a second time. “There’s more to being in SOLDIER than just getting your dick wet,” he muttered as took the hem of his turtleneck and pulled it over his head.

“By the looks of you, you wouldn’t know it,” Barret clapped back as he undid his shoes, keeping his eyes on every inch of pale, soft skin that Cloud’s clothes yielded.

They both made quick work of their clothes, Cloud opting to leave his socks again. This was a bit more familiar to him, with no need to navigate around the odd social interactions that bedding a female would require. He knew what men expected from him. Without being told to, he turned his back on Barret, partway assuming the position.

He peeked over his shoulder to have a look at Barret’s body as he finished shrugging out of his vest and walked out of his pants, warm left hand on his cock, and tried to imagine taking the whole thing, from head to hilt. He turned forward again, more turning from the thought of the pain than anything else.

Barret placed a cold hand slowly--almost gently--against the center of Cloud’s back. Cloud shivered violently, the muscles underneath his skin responding to the whirring of the small machine parts in Barret’s prosthesis. He spread his knees, dropped his hips, and arched his back as the metal finger trailed along his spine. Behind him, he pointed his socked toes. He’d been told that it made a pretty picture, with his slim waist fanning out to his ass.

“You’re shaped liked a damned woman,” Barret whispered, like he’d heard Cloud’s thoughts and knew where to go from there. He placed both of his hands on either side of Cloud’s torso, and the alternating feeling of hot and cold on either side made Cloud drop his head and arch his back even deeper.

“You’d be the first to complain about that.” He rolled his head around and back as Barret parted his fingers and slid them against his sides, each hard finger bumping against every one of his ribs, all the way down to his hips.

He enjoyed the way this man’s size overtook him; how his entire body seemed to fit perfectly into his hands. It wasn’t something he’d experienced before. He was smaller than most of the men at Shinra, but they were mostly lean and slighter types with little variety. This was different, and Cloud had to admit to himself that he was enjoying himself more than he’d have liked.

Cloud inhaled deeply as he felt Barret’s wet cock slide up against the cleft of his ass, and the small of his back. He turned back to have a look, but could mostly just see the square buzz-cut of Barret’s hair. He arched deeper, twisting his neck around so he could get a better look.

Barret’s hands found the hard muscle of Cloud’s ass, and spread them apart. A breath hitched in Cloud’s throat as he was exposed to the air, and the mercy of Barret’s cold finger, which passed over the hole. Cloud gasped and twitched.

He turned his head over his shoulder and was just about to ask for lube, when Barret finally responded to him.

“I ain’t complainin’.” Barret released Cloud, wrapped his hands around his thighs and yanked him back. The move surprised Cloud, and he made a startled sound as the side of his face hit the mattress and his ass went into the air, presenting itself to Barret, which was apparently the desired effect.

Cloud’s face flushed with blood, his eyes widening as he felt Barret’s tongue press against him.

 _That_ had certainly never happened to him before. Immediately, his cock went rock hard, and he swore, long and breathily.

“But you don’t kiss whores, though,” Cloud made sure to throw that in Barret’s face to make himself feel better about how fucking _good_ it felt to have his ass eaten.

Barret’s response was to point his tongue and slide it deeper inside Cloud, which caused him both to melt, and shut his mouth. He had always been careful not to make too many indications of pleasure, but this had him groaning, pinching his eyes shut, and wrenching Barret’s thin duvet between his fingers. Barret was obviously trying to draw out every possible sound he could. Cloud reached between underneath himself and wrapped a hand around his dick just as Barret pulled away with a wet smack of his lips, and shoved him forward.

Before Cloud could shift his weight, a heavy hand came down hard on his left ass cheek.

“ _Ahh,_ ” he moaned, snapping forward from the shock, and letting the pain settle and dissipate into the muscle. Barret snickered and then turned away from him, toward a rusted locker in another corner of the room.

“Got a rubber?” he asked.

Cloud turned over, ending up on his knees again, unable to resist touching himself, facing Barret’s back. He caught the small packet--a _sample_ he’d picked up from somewhere; the cheap motherfucker--before it hit him in the face.

“Nope.” Cloud knew what to do from there. He opened the packet, emptied the contents onto his fingers, and leaned back with his knees spread.

Barret gave him a scoffing laugh. He’d found the rest of what he needed and looked down to roll the condom onto himself as he went on chastising Cloud.

“And what if Jessie didn’t have any?”

Cloud was too busy fucking himself with a lubed finger to answer immediately. He bit his lip and made a sound as his finger neared his prostate, and then withdrew so that he could add another.

“I would have fucked her anyway.” It was a partial lie, but it burst from his mouth in a way that was almost spiteful. No matter how well Cloud could fight, nothing seemed to make Barret respond to him better than the fantasy that he was some reckless, walking cunt with a bad attitude.

Two fingers were about as much as he could ever fit comfortably, and the thought of taking all of Barret’s blunted cock was as exciting as it was terrifying.

Barret made a sound as he slammed the locker shut. “Fuckin’ army whores,” he said under his breath as he turned back toward Cloud on the bed. “Just nasty.”

The hypocrisy of Barret calling him a nasty whore after he’d just had his face in his ass was the most annoying thing Cloud had heard from him since they met.

“What are you, my fucking dad?” Cloud snapped, the sexual frustration in his voice evident, and causing him to sound rather like a petulant child. “Are you gonna fuck me, or give me a lecture?”

Barret took his time getting back into place at the edge of his bed. He deposited three more packets of lube as he watched Cloud work himself open, the expression on the younger man’s face clouded with anger and lust.

“Jonesin’ that badly for a dick in your ass, ain’tcha, SOLDIER boy.”

“Whatever,” came the obvious reply as Cloud moved down toward Barret. He tossed Barret a packet of lube, and emulated his former colleagues in the infantry, who had picked up the greasy slum vernacular from their trips to Sector 6 and brought it back up the plate. “Quit talking about it and be about it.”

Just as soon as Cloud said that, Barret shoved Cloud back and pulled his thighs up so that his ass was off the bed. Cloud pointed his toes again, and rested them against Barret’s biceps.

If he had to hear any more of Barret’s snipes, he’d would have been done for the night. Thankfully, Barret looked like he enjoyed the view of Cloud’s waifish body--furrowed brow, pinched lips and all-- spread out beneath him more than he would have enjoyed answering the challenge.

He used one hand to open up the packet of lube and spread onto himself, while the cold one reached out to turn one of Cloud’s nipples between the fingers. Cloud hissed through his teeth, and through squinted eyes happened to notice that for the first time that night, Barret seemed completely calm.

It was a clever way to distract Cloud from the slow burn of Barrent pressing into Cloud’s hole. His breath caught in his throat, and he closed his eyes, trying to remember both to breathe and relax as Barret worked his cock inside of him. The rimming earlier had been a blessing; he was warm and pliable, which his own prep wouldn’t have helped much with.

Barret leaned forward, the growl in his chest rumbling through to his cock and into Cloud. His lids sank closed as Cloud _pushed_ , opening himself up. Barret, size and girth, sank in with relative ease, and they both tilted their heads back.

 _”Fuck,”_ Cloud breathed loudly, emphasis on the _k_. He kept his eyes closed; his brain couldn’t process much else, not even the dim lights in the room. Especially not the look of pleasure on Barret’s face.

“Mm-hmm.” Cloud had no way of communicating how _agreeable_ that simple sound was from Barret. He pulled out, and went in again, still slow enough for Cloud to writhe against the pain and sharp pleasure, and repeated the ritual until they found a rhythm.

And there it was, the dynamic they’d been seeking to gain respite from each other. The silence. Just wet skin smacking against wet skin, low grunts from Barret, Cloud losing the battle with himself to fight against making any noise, lest he scream.

A few gasping, guttural sounds from the younger man and the extreme contortion of his face told Barret that he needed some help. Not breaking his rhythm he reached out with his prosthetic hand, and curled the fingers around the base of Cloud’s throat. The resulting gag was what Barret had wanted when he had face fucked him earlier, and hearing it sent him into a cursing, rutting madness, putting more pressure on Cloud’s trachea and slamming into him.

Cloud’s eyes flew open. The restricted blood flow to his head, combined with Barret pounding directly past his spot and nearly into his guts was a dangerous combination. He felt as if he’d taken a hit of some powerful drug.

Barret released Cloud’s throat and drew his hand down the front of his chest. Cloud sucked in air, gasping, and looked at Barret through watery eyes. The larger man couldn’t help but admire how _good_ this kid looked, torn down from his arrogant fighting stance at the reactor, and now used up and pretty, sweating underneath him in his bed.

He wanted to say something, but he worried that a compliment might be too far. Instead, he pulled out, and swatted at his ass from the side.

“Move your ass, Stamp,” he ordered.

Cloud took a second to catch his breath. It felt like he’d been turned inside out when Barret removed his cock. “God _damn_ ,” he cursed to himself as he rolled over to allow Barret to take his place.

He climbed on top of Barret, straddling him, and craned his neck back to make sure he was positioning himself properly.

With his free hand, Barret flicked the side of Cloud’s cock, which bounced against his belly as he lowered himself.

“Ow!” Cloud winced and gave Barret a dirty look, which disintegrated as he sank down, taking his dick in a more comfortable position. Barret ran his palm against the engorged organ to calm it. Cloud moaned and dipped his head back.

“Didn’t shoot all your kids with the girl, did you?” Barret asked, placing his large hands over Cloud’s small hips.

“I’m twenty-one, Old Fashioned,” Cloud let his hands rest onto Barret’s chest, feeling the strength he had in somewhere other than his dick. His skin gave nothing against Cloud’s palms and remained hard as rocks. Again, his skin rippled underneath the size of Barret’s hands as they slid up and down, breaking into another shiver against the metal. “You don’t gotta worry about me.”

“I’m sure I don’t.”

Cloud snapped his hips back and felt Barret tense up nearly every muscle, squeeze his eyes shut, and squeeze his thighs together. He liked this position. Who didn’t like to have control over a partner coming?

Cloud stretched his torso out, working his hips independently from the rest of his body, like he was bathing in Barret’s out-of-control grunts and swearing. When he was almost sure that the man was about to come, Barret reached out and seized Cloud’s hips, picking him up entirely off his cock.

The action surprised Cloud, but he recovered from it quickly, tucked his knees to his chest, and allowed Barret to spin him and place him right back down on his hips.

That was probably the same type of _fun_ that Jessie had written all over her face earlier that night. Cloud couldn’t help but grin a bit as he reached behind him to replace Barret’s cock. There was, indeed, something quite fun about fucking a person that was stronger than you; that could break you in half just as soon as they could pick you up and toss you around.

“Liked that, didn’t you, Stamp,” Barret grinned.

Cloud couldn’t say no. He shared with Barret that same smile that had only Jessie had previously experienced as Barret chuckled rather pleasantly, got up on one knee, took hold of Cloud’s hips, and slid back inside of him.

Cloud hissed in response. This was the position that hurt the most, but he knew it was the one that would make him come. He spread his knees to angle himself upwards into Barret, which further invited the larger man to fuck him squatting, making the angle the most extreme.

Cloud’s body responded to it immediately. His teeth clenched, his cock leaked, and he couldn’t keep himself from groaning loudly, the volume increasing as Barret jackhammered into him.

“I’m gon’ break you in half, Merc,” Barret leaned down to growl into Cloud’s ear, and followed his words with a hot tongue.

“Fucking try me,” Cloud ground out between his teeth, face halfway into the hard mattress.

For all the Cloud could tell, he _did_ try. Barret slammed into his hips, this time not letting up on the speed or intensity. With considerable effort, Cloud bit his lip and clenched down on Barret’s moving cock.

Barret’s nails dug into Cloud’s skin. _”Shit.”_

Cloud lost time, even going blind for a moment as his balls tensed up and he came for a second time that night, right into a pool beneath him. He had barely even noticed it, such was the intensity of Barret’s own orgasm destroying him. He was grabbing handfuls of Cloud’s hair and skin as his entire body lurched forward three last times, emptying itself into the barrier.

Cloud hadn’t had an orgasm so fucking painful and so fucking good in a long while. He was glad it was over. He was so wrecked that he couldn’t move. Even breathing felt like needles in his chest.

Barret collapsed directly on top of Cloud, crushing him and pressing the air out of him. Some of his come had leaked out of the condom, essentially rendering the whole effort useless. Cloud’s scrambled head compartmentalized that and tried to reconstruct itself, starting with the most urgent priority first.

“Barret,” he said, muffled into the mattress.

Barret breathed heavily into Cloud’s ear, his the duvet soaking up the sweat from his brow.

“Barret,” Cloud repeated, louder. “Barret!”

“What?” Barret had the nerve to be annoyed in his reply.

“Get…” He struggled for air. “Off of me.”

Barret knew he was three times Cloud’s weight, and yet he still took his time pulling out of Cloud, making sure the condom didn’t rupture completely, and rolling off to the side. The bed wasn’t truly big enough to fit the both of them, but Cloud was in no position to move. He curled into a fetal position as his body began sending messages to his brain, telling him which parts were broken or hurting, as if he were running a diagnostic on himself.

His stomach, his ass, his cock… everything fucking _hurt._ Now he really was done.

“Had enough?” Barret said, still catching his breath. He slipped the condom off and threw it into a small wastebasket near his bed. Cloud cringed at the wet sound it made hitting the metal. “Ready for another one?”

The idea of another round with Barret nearly sent Cloud into a convulsion. He hid his head in his knees for a second. “Do you ever shut up?”

\--

It took several more minutes of doing absolutely nothing before either men were able to lift a limb. It occurred to Cloud that in that time, they’d both drifted off: it’d been a long day, and a long night. They’d certainly cheated themselves out of a good night’s sleep, but once the pain and soreness began to subside, Cloud decided that it was worth it.

Barret got up and went to his locker again.

“Water comes on at four,” he mumbled. Cloud leaned over the bed to fetch his pants, and fished his phone out. It was three-fifty-three in the morning. They had to be up in two hours.

“I suggest you go ahead and use it before everyone else wakes up.”

“How generous of you,” Cloud said, stretching and yawning.

“Here.”

Barret didn’t turn to look at Cloud when the fat envelope landed at his knees on the bed.

Cloud took it up immediately and sat back on his haunches.

“Mind if I count it?” He had already wet a finger and had no intention of leaving the room until he had done so anyway. He didn’t show it, but this was more money than he’d ever handled at once at any other point in his life.

“Whatever.” Barret’s foul mood had returned, and he turned into his grimy bathroom to grab a quick shower. “Do you.”

When he came back, Cloud was just finishing up the last bills.

“You _still_ countin’?” Barret said as he passed a towel between his legs.

“If you don’t keep quiet, it’s gonna take me even longer,” Cloud frowned. He’d lost his place; had he just counted that twenty, or was it the next in a series of four twenties? He scratched the back of his head.

Barret snickered and shook his head. “It’s always the pretty ones who ain’t got much up there.”

Cloud finished, restacked the money, and wrapped a rubber band around it. He shrugged. “Heard that before. So, where’s the rest of it?”

“You’ll get it tomorrow, Merc.” Barret’s back was turned as he went into his chest to pull out a new pair of drawers.

“Will I?”

Barret turned back to Cloud. Clearly, he’d finally had enough of his company.

“You gonna wash your ass, or what?”

\--

The shower was a cold one, but it was better than nothing. By the time he finished and redressed--unfortunately noting the gritty texture of dirty clothes against clean skin--it was past four thirty. Sleep was a near impossibility for him at that point, but it didn’t stop Barret from dozing off, splayed out in his bed in nothing but his underwear.

Cloud walked past him, making sure to take his money with him, and slipped out the door.

No one else had stirred yet, but already, Seventh Heaven’s neighbors were out and about, prepping their wares for sale, disposing of garbage, or feeding their animals.

Cloud took up a spot in one of the dining chairs, and leaned his back to doze off.

It seemed like only a few minutes had passed before the door to Tifa’s room opened.

\--

Everyone but Biggs filed past Cloud, now seated at the bar, wishing him and everyone else a good morning. Jessie’s smile seemed as much a part of a large breakfast as anything else Tifa made. Biggs looked like he was hungover. Wedge’s greeting was as dismissable as anything else he said.

“Good morning, Cloud.” Tifa came up from behind him, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

Cloud leaned back, lifted his arms, and placed them around her head in an embrace. “Morning.”

Tifa was delighted with this, and went behind her bar to pour coffee. “You seem like you’re in a much better place today.”

“I guess,” he said, taking the offered cup. She gestured for sugar, and he shook his head.

“Did Barret pay you?”

“Yeah, actually.”

Tifa’s eyes brightened. “Oh, good! I’m so glad.” She leaned forward on her elbows to talk to him. He simply drank the coffee. “I was concerned about that.”

“So was I.”

Wedge took Tifa’s attention away from Cloud just long enough for Jessie to take a seat one chair away from him.

“How was your night?” She asked, innocently. Cloud could almost _see_ what was going on in Jessie’s head. On his other side, Biggs gave a great roll of his eyes, and creamed his coffee.

“It was… fine. Yours?”

“Not bad, all things considered.” She winked at him just in time for Tifa to swoop down with her pot of coffee to pour into the cup.

Cloud acted like he either didn’t hear or wasn’t interested.

“All things considered like…?” Tifa asked.

Not missing a beat, Jessie turned to her with a smile. “Well, we nearly got our asses kicked last night, remember?”

“Oh, that’s right, the reactor…” And then Jessie involved her in some inane conversation that had Biggs making an exasperated face into his coffee.

“Biggs? Everything alright?”

Cloud looked over, curious about what he was about to say to Tifa.

Biggs passed a hand over his unshaven face, still greasy with sleep. Like Jessie, he didn’t hesitate whatsoever. “Yeah, just tired as all hell.”

Biggs gained a few points of respect in Cloud’s book.

“Well, you all have got to get going soon, right? Should you sit this one…”

Tifa left her place with Jessie to talk with Biggs, and as soon as she did, Jessie picked up her phone, with a telling grin on her face.

Cloud’s phone buzzed. He picked it up, and saw a text message from a number he didn’t recognize.

_this u Cloud?_

_how the hell did you get my #_

_;)_

_you are so damned creepy_

Cloud looked up from his phone for a moment, instinctively, to see if anyone noticed that there were two people in the room on their phones at the same time. By the time he looked down, Jessie had sent three messages.

_OMG, rude??_  
_hey so…_  
_did u talk with him?_

Cloud placed his phone down, and took his time sipping his coffee. When he picked it back up, it was to read the news reports about the bombing, or at least pretend to do so.

He wasn’t looking at her, but he knew that Jessie was squirming in her seat.

_hello??_

Cloud finished his coffee.

_im talking to u!_

_well i got money now, so..._

_yea ur welcome!!!_

_gotta think of a way to get you back_

_spill the deets_

Cloud looked at his phone in confusion.

_do what now_

_spill. the. deets. details. tell me everything._

_ohh. … pervert._

_tramp!!! :P_

They chuckled at the same time, nose in their phones, while the rest of their company went about their morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These two took a lot of energy out of me. Imagine what it must be like to listen to them argue all the damned time?
> 
> Next up: Cloud, Biggs and Jessie kick it.


	4. bring her buddy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"There's enough room on my dick for the both of you."_
> 
> Jessie makes a proposition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of this and the next chapter was written before the _Remake_ release, so certain details are reminiscent of either the OG or mixtures of both. To get this done, I'm not going to change them too much. ;)

Breakfast ended without ceremony. Barret just wound a finger in the air, hollered let’s move out, and everyone slid off of whatever surface they were sitting on and filed out, leaving Cloud and their leader to have their humbling discussion about materia.

After getting over the initial shock that there was something Barret didn’t _pretend_ not to know about, Cloud was patient and clear in his lesson. In fact, it flattered him that Barret felt comfortable enough to ask him.

“Here.” Cloud reached into his cargo pocket and pulled free a blue _All_ orb that he’d picked up and had neglected to use. Barret just stared at it in his hand. “Take it.”

“Really?”

Cloud held back any further comment or surprise that anyone could be so enchanted by something that was so common. It grew in the streets there, for crying out loud. He held it out for Barret, until the man clasped and locked it into his gatling gun, linked to the Thunder he had trouble using.

Barret scratched his head. “Thanks.”

Their truce signed, Cloud felt inclined to nod his “you’re welcome,” and follow the others out onto the street, adjusting the weapon on his back.

\--

There was no sun out at eight o’clock in the morning, but the light that filtered through the cracks in the plate aggravated Cloud’s migraine enough for him to pull out his sunglasses.

The walk to the train station shouldn’t have felt like it took so long. Cloud realized that the coffee had worn off and he was flagging when he noticed that he’d fallen several paces behind Jessie and Biggs and had to push himself to keep up.

Ahead of him, Barret held up a fist and summoned Wedge over, while the others skidded to a stop behind an abandoned building, with Jessie and Biggs taking refuge against the side. A dumpster provided cover, not different from the alley he and Jessie had talked in the night before.

He took up next to them, unloading his sword and holding it between his knees, just as he observed Jessie huddle close to Biggs. He poured something in a flat surface she had--a compact, it looked like--and then leaned back against the wall himself. 

It didn’t escape Cloud that Jessie had been uncharacteristically quiet since they’d left that morning. She wasn’t smiling either, and her eyes were framed with shadows that hadn’t been there the night before. The same could be said about Biggs, but there was still the possibility that he was sore about being an unwilling third wheel to his and Jessie's date. His brow was fixed in a near scowl that meant that he was either just as exhausted as the rest of them, or deeply aggravated. Likely it was both. 

“Need a cigarette?” Jessie asked without looking up.

“Yeah.”

Jessie found the pack and her lighter, and instead of using it as an opportunity to remain in close proximity to him, she tossed both at him, and then leaned back against the wall with her compact. She held it to her nose, inhaled sharply, and then cleared her throat. Cloud lit his cigarette, and then pocketed the pack.

Seconds later, Biggs did the same thing, but from a blue tin box that had probably once held mints.

“Cram?” Cloud asked from behind his shades. He was sure he looked just as rough as the others. The only one who didn’t seem to be affected by lack of sleep was Barret, and… _maybe_ Wedge. 

Jessie looked over to him. “Yeah, need some?”

It’d been a good five years since the only time Cloud had ever tried the synthetic drug--not since his SOLDIER trials--but there was no better time to give it another shot. He recalled how bad of a stomach ache it gave him back then, and how its diuretic and laxative qualities had caused him considerable embarrassment and discomfort. 

Cloud stood up and moved over towards the two. “Yeah.”

“Biggs.” Jessie looked to her friend, and gestured to Cloud with a thumb.

Cloud stopped for a second. Biggs had every reason to say no; to curse him out or give some snarky remark that Cloud had no energy to reply to.

Instead, he just sighed, kicked himself off the dilapidated brick wall, and opened his tin.

“Here,” he murmured to Cloud.

Cloud licked the crescent of skin between his thumb and forefinger and leaned over Jessie as she went on powdering her nose. 

A few taps and Cloud had enough of the powder on his hand, he assumed, to keep him going for at least a couple of hours, as long as this was the last break they took. From behind his shades, he had time to follow the stubble on Biggs’ jawline up into the side of his face, and remember what it felt like to be _so_ into someone that you’d do whatever they say in spite of your own pride.

“Probably not up to par with what they give you in SOLDIER,” Biggs remarked, glancing up at him sideways as he finished funneling the stimulant onto the wet part of Cloud’s hand. He closed the tin shut and returned to his place on the other side of Jessie.

A sharp pain lanced through Cloud's head. He hissed and grabbed the roots of his own hair--not now--pulling harshly to distract himself. 

A few shards of the powder slid off his hand and dissipated into the air. 

"--'s up, Cloud?" Biggs asked lazily. "You good?" 

"I'm fine."

Cloud brought his fist to his nose and snorted, the mucous membranes in his nose responding immediately. He held his head back and allowed the solution to drip down the back of his throat. It hit nearly instantly, but without as extreme of a punch as he’d expected. No stomach ache, no euphoria; though, that would likely come when he least expected it. His eyelids lifted, and he waited a moment for the grit on his eyeballs to clear as he took a drag of his cigarette.

“You’re right,” he said, with a cough. “It’s trash.”

"You're welcome to a refund," Biggs mumbled, "If you pay for it."

"I'm good for it, Biggs." Cloud sniffed, hard, nearly gagging at the metallic fluid as it slid down his esophagus. 

Jessie angled her face in her compact, examining the space above her cheeks that bore the weight of her exhaustion, sniffing involuntarily every few seconds. 

“God, I’m so tired,” she huffed.

Biggs snorted, then sniffed to retrieve the product he’d likely blown out of his nose. “Gee, I wonder why?”

“Quit crying about it, would you?” Jessie snapped at him, in the nastiest tone that Cloud had yet to hear from her. It discouraged any response in kind. She went back to her mirror. “It’s unattractive.”

It wasn’t clear if the next snort from Biggs was one of indignation or drug ingestion. As if Cloud weren’t standing right next to him, Biggs lit his own cigarette and shot back, “ _I’m_ unattractive?”

Cloud rubbed a finger against the bridge of his nose. It was both too early and too late for this.

“I don’t bring off strange men in my shared quarters, at least.”

Jessie snapped her compact shut and swing her head around toward Biggs, ponytail whipping against the dirty brick. “You don’t bring off _anybody,_ ” was her hoarse, dark reply.

“You know,” Cloud interrupted before the escalation could impact his headache, “There’s enough room on my dick for the both of you.”

 _That_ shut them both up. As he casually took a last drag, Jessie turned to him with a saucy smile, as and Biggs twisted his face in disgust. 

"Told you he always knows just what to say!" 

"Mm-hmm." Biggs picked at his tin with his index finger and thumb, and rubbed his gums with the residual. Jessie opened her compact and did the same, with Cloud following suit. 

Barret came by at the exact moment that all three happened to be doing the same thing and sucked his teeth in loudly. 

"Aw, c'mon now," he groaned. "Really? Y'all look like a buncha addicts."

Jessie took her compact and waved it at Barret, her trademark smile and the light in her eyes having returned.

“Need a line? I got you--”

“ _Hell_ no,” Barret waved her off. “I don’t want none of that shit.” 

Jessie’s shrug read suit yourself. 

“And you shouldn’t be messin’ with it, neither. Let’s move out, dopeheads.”

“Heard, _daddy_ ,” Jessie said as she took off after Biggs.

“What’d I tell you ‘bout calling me that, girl.” Barret’s warning voice held no sway over Jessie. She nudged him with an elbow as she moved past him.

Barret flicked his chin at Cloud. “You too, slick shit.”

Cloud had only had those two puffs of the cigarette before he threw it out. With the drug working, the taste of nicotine was foul and singed his dry throat.

\--

hey

Cloud tried to limit the amount of time he read or looked at anything while on the moving vehicle, but he needed something to distract him from the uncomfortable way Tifa had seemed dejected when she realized that Jessie had already shown him the schematic of the plate. He’d asked her to show him anyway. The effect of the drug had him in a particularly good mood, and he could have talked to her about it, but her attitude changed, and it became a cumbersome experience. He hung onto a seat railing and looked at his phone.

_your standing literally a foot away from me_

_so_

_why can’t you just talk to me_

_bc homeboy right there lol  
listen  
i cannot stop thinking abt wat u said_

_what did I say?_

_there’s room on my :banana: for d both of u_

Cloud looked up at Jessie, who was seated against a window right next to Biggs. She grinned like some maniac, frantically swiping her phone with her thumbs. Biggs had one ankle crossed over his knee, his arms above his head, eyes closed with earbuds in. His cheeks bulged at moments, and Cloud recognized that he was grinding his teeth, and had his eyes closed to keep from becoming overstimulated. Pretty smart guy.

_i was just joking_

_yea but now i can’t stop thinking about it :cry emoji: :wet emoji:_

_:eyeroll emoji:_

Cloud dropped his arm. He thought that’d be the end of the discussion, but the phone buzzed again.

_i mean dont u think hes cute_

Cloud glanced up at Biggs again. He’d already taken note of his sharp jaw and dark eyes before, but if he were to be honest with himself, Biggs had such movie star good looks that bedding him wasn’t something that would have ever entered his mind until Jessie said something.

_he’s decent_

_don’t u wanna hit that tho_

_gonna take a wild guess and assume he’s not into guys_

_idk i never asked_

_you know he isn’t. stop playing_

_c’mon cloud let’s try_

_forget it._

_please omg. :cry emoji: :cry emoji: you two would be so hot together_

_what is your problem woman_

_he’s got a really pretty dick_

_didn’t hear about that last night, just about how he sucked and didn’t give head_

_we can learn him a few things :smirk emoji:_

_drop it and focus_

Biggs _was_ attractive, but Cloud had come from a long history of crushing and begging and was not about to ask someone who showed no interest in him to lie down with him. He had better things to put his mind to, like doing his job so he could cash out and _leave._

Cloud put his phone in his pocket and ignored every text from Jessie thereafter. It didn’t stop her from continuing, though.

Biggs opened his right eye to peer at Jessie, whose smile had stretched thin as she hunched over her phone, very obviously doing something she ought not to have been. Her tongue peeked out from the corner of her lips, a sign that she was either deep in concentration or enthralled by something.

“Texting your boyfriend?” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Jessie mumbled out of the side of her mouth without the shape of it moving.

\--

The mission went smoothly, and much quicker than the previous night. Perhaps it was the cram, or perhaps it was the fact that most tensions had been resolved; either way, everyone knew their places and worked smoothly with each other. Tifa’s added presence was a great help to them, and it had been a pleasure to see her work professionally and single-mindedly. Like Barret, she was a fanatic, and although that was something that would forever keep the two of them separate, he was happy to work alongside her as a partner and see her in a different light.  
Their trip back to the bar was unreasonably simple and lacked any disruption whatsoever. Something about that didn’t sit right with Cloud, but once they each exploded into the closed establishment, the only thought he had was to shower quickly and lay down.

It was only around eleven in the morning when they returned. Cloud, Biggs, and Jessie now had to pay the steep price for the drug they took. The after effects of the high were nothing if not predictable: headache, dry mouth, dopamine crash, exhaustion mixed with wakefulness, jitters, numbness in various parts of the body. Not one of the three wanted to talk. 

They all made beelines to their respective rooms while Tifa opened her bar. It was an unspoken rule that during the day, none of the group members should be seen or heard, and there was no complaint against that from Cloud.

He threw himself onto Tifa’s bed when he finished with the shower, his eyelids weighted and gritty again. He reached for his phone to have a glance at Jessie’s texts before he fell asleep.

_im tellin u itll be good_

_he got a nice body_

_like u got barret y u can’t get him_

_i cant stop thinking about it :cry emoji:_

None of them were worth answering. Cloud plugged his phone in, and curled into a ball, his hands sliding under his arms.

\--

Sleeping with cram in the system was like a dangerous ride at the Gold Saucer.

Cloud wasn’t even sure if he’d actually gotten real sleep. He dreamt the whole time, images cut in with loud noises from above and moments where he’d opened his eyes, shifted his weight and moved to a cooler portion of the bed. He smelled sweet things, either Tifa or Barret’s girl, and then shifted back before falling asleep again. 

He relived his bizarre experiences from the last several days in new ways that echoed reality.

I don’t kiss whores, Barret said as he filled his tongue with his mouth.

You’d stick your dick in one…. Try aschebeeren _. They’d leave a smoky finish…_

Jessie blew a ring of smoke into his face.

 _You’re just lucky._ She had his cock in her hand, on her knees, then moved to the cock in her other hand. Biggs grabbed her by the back of her head, closed his eyes, and then looked at him.

Strange music with pounding bass rattled in his ears.

 _Probably not up to par with what they give you in SOLDIER,_ he said. His smirk was an exact copy of the one he’d given him on their first mission together, before he crawled in through the cut fence after him.

With Jessie’s mouth on both of them, they filled the space between them with their tongues. Cloud moaned as the stubble from Biggs’s chin slid against his jaw.

 _I don’t kiss whores,_ Cloud parroted.

\--

Cloud jump-started awake.

The last sign of this stimulant leaving the body was that all extremities--lips, fingertips, toes and genitals--were engorged with blood. 

The music from his dreams wasn’t a figment of his imagination. It continued, guiding him into consciousness as he wiped his eyes and ran his palm along the fabric, stretched by his hard cock.

_Not up to par with what they gave you in SOLDIER_

He reached over and picked up his phone. The last message Jessie sent had been at around one in the afternoon. It was now eight. He’d slept about seven hours, which wasn’t a ton, but it was a lot more than the average amount he’d slept while he was with Shinra.

_could be fun_

The odd experience of having dreams while one wasn’t in total REM sleep had the effect on Cloud that had placed some of the imagery from them on the same level of reality. He’d relived what he already knew with Barret and Jessie, but now the seed planted in his head by the latter had begun to blossom, and kissing him in his dream had felt entirely real and possible.

He typed into their messages:

_challenge accepted_


End file.
